


Solidarity

by TeaandBanjo



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 17:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17228147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaandBanjo/pseuds/TeaandBanjo
Summary: boccardo_syllogism, (in one of her other personas on a different platform), gifted me with this lovely prompt:   “Cec and Bert want to make sure about Hugh’s intentions for Dotty.”A late Christmas present happened.  (I hope you have a few lights and decorations still up!)





	Solidarity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boccardo_syllogism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boccardo_syllogism/gifts).



> Thanks to Scruggzi for giving careful attention to the story and Bert's communist rants!

Dusk was falling, and Senior Constable Hugh Collins was just off shift and trying not to act as aimless as he felt.  He needed to **not** be at the station until the Inspector was gone. A little bit of a walk in the fresh air, some cheap food somewhere, and then back to City South to see if the constable on duty could not notice a bloke sleeping in an empty cell, “just this once.”  

He felt the hair rising on the back of his neck, as the sound of two sets of footsteps on the sidewalk behind him called his attention. The shops here were closing, but the early evening side street was not completely empty.  People behind him wasn’t surprising. _So, what is the threat?_

He picked up his pace a little.  A delivery boy with a heavy basket dodged, obviously unwilling to tangle with a tall man in a uniform.  The footsteps had picked up to match his pace. _I’m being followed._

“Oi!  Collins!”  a familiar voice was raised just a little.  “We need a word with you.”

Hugh turned, still not certain if he was going to end up fighting someone.   _What do Miss Fisher’s red-raggers want with me?_

Bert Johnson stepped in, too close, but hands still in pockets.  The top of his hat was at Hugh’s eye level.

“Johnson, Yates!”  Collins decided to take a little initiative back.  “You blokes in trouble?”

“We aim to find out if you are going to take good care of Dotty!”  The man was standing his ground, looking up at Collins.

“Miss William’s father isn’t around to do it.”  Cecil Yates smiled and leaned against a lamp post.  “So we’re looking out for the lass.”

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” he replied, feeling less sure of that than he would like.   _Where are you sleeping tonight, Hugh?_

“No offense, mate, but we don’t think that a bloody tool of the bourgeois establishment is a good choice for her.” Bert suddenly had a paper and a bag of tobacco in his hands, and proceeded to assemble a cigarette with only an occasional glance at his fingers.  “She’s better off staying a miss than signing up to be oppressed by the likes of you.”

Hugh felt vaguely ridiculous.  He didn’t really feel up for a debate about the exploitation of the working class, and Cec was beginning to smirk.  

“I don’t want to oppress her.  I’m going to take care of her, and she’s going to make a home for us.”  A rumble of Hugh’s stomach reminded him that even if Dotty was in a kitchen, she wasn’t cooking dinner for him.   _What are you going to eat?  And When?_

“Speaking of home,” interrupted Cec, rolling his eyes at his partner, “I have one to go to.  And Alice has dinner waiting for me.”

“I’m not done with the copper!”  Bert put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it, dropped the packet of matches back into his coat.  “Miss Williams shouldn’t shackle herself to this tool of bourgeois imperialism. He’s just looking for someone to lick his boots.  Thinks a wife will do it for him.”

Hugh tried to close his mouth. _I must look like a fish._  

Cecil Yates covered his face with his hand, although a small snort of a laugh got through.   He stepped away from his lamp post. “I’m going to go in this bakery. Bert, when I come out, you’d better be done with this little bit of idiocy.”  He pushed open the bakery door, and the smell of bread wafted out.

Hugh wondered how much hungrier he could get.  “What has imperialist whatever got to do with a man getting married?” he demanded.

“It is *exactly* like the Brits invading Australia!”  Bert shook his fist, warming to his subject.

“Wait, what?”  Hugh wondered if there was something he missed from a history class, back when he was twelve.

“You going over and putting hands on Dotty and demanding her natural resources.”  Bert took a long drag from the cigarette.

“I’m not demanding anything, you loon.  I asked. She said yes.” _Why is he laughing?_

“She’s going to end up Mrs. Hugh Collins, and fetching and carrying for you and your bloody kids.  She’ll be happier if she stays Miss Williams.” Bert took another puff, adding more smoke to the stuff already hanging in the air around him.

“She accepted the ring!”  protested Hugh.

Bert put his hands up and backed away.  “I…”

“Well, I see this is going to be a lengthy discussion.”  Yates had a paper bag under his arm. “Why don’t you two come up to visit over dinner?  I’m sure Alice won’t mind.”

“Is Alice going to feed her good cooking to this poor sod?”  Bert made one last cloud of smoke, and dropped the miniscule remainder of his cigarette to the pavement.  He ground it decisively under his foot.

“He’s hungry, ain’t he?”  Cec shrugged. “To each according to his needs.”

Bert grunted in agreement.   “Alright, fine. You and Alice can feed another stray.”

Hugh’s stomach rumbled again, and he remembered his manners.  “Thank you, I would love to, if Mrs. Yates will have me.”

The two cabbies closed in on either side to prevent his escape, Bert still muttering under his breath about oppressors of widows and orphans.  None of seemed to be addressed to Hugh, as far as he could tell.  
  


After a short walk, they arrived at a Victorian-era cottage, which apparently had been subdivided into two flats.  There was a wooden stair up the side of the building, and a sturdy door at the top. Cec opened it while Hugh and Bert waited on the steps behind him.

“I’m home, love.”  Cec stuck his head inside.  A fat orange cat appeared in the doorway, rubbed itself against the man’s trousers, and went back the way it came.  “Are you decent? I brought two more for dinner.”

The door swung open, and Mrs. Yates pulled him inside.   “Only two? I guess there will be just enough.” She wore a print apron over a plain dress.  The design on her apron was cheerful, a poor match for the faded, old-fashioned roses on the stained wallpaper.

“I brought some bread.  It will be plenty.” Cec tossed his cap onto a nail next to the door, and set the bag down on a very imposing sideboard, where there was an electric hot plate with a large pot.  The other two men followed him into the flat. The cat leaped to one arm of a worn sofa, wrapped its fluffy tail over its feet and eyed them all suspiciously.

“Constable Collins!”  Alice Yates smiled in recognition.  “Will you stay for dinner?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Hugh.  The smell of cooking filled the room, and Yates was now slicing *two* loaves of bread.

“Mrs. Yates, this copper thinks he’s good enough for Miss Williams.  Bloke hasn’t said more than two words about why he deserves a lady like that.” Bert grinned at Alice.

“Dot's no more of a proper lady than I am,” said Alice, who was adding two more blue and white bowls, napkins and some spoons to the table.  She left the room for a moment, and returned with a fourth chair.

“My mate Cec isn’t a tool of the moneyed oppressors.”  Bert sat, and hooked his thumbs into his vest pockets. Cec snorted, and moved the sliced bread to another blue and white plate.

“I told you, I’m not an oppressor.  I’m a senior constable, I’m going to be moving up…”   _eventually_.  “I love her and want to make her happy.”

“Come sit down, men.  Dinner is ready.” Alice neatly ladled pea soup into the four bowls, and the plate with the bread and a small dish of butter followed.   She hung her apron on a nail, and joined the men at the table.

Hugh paused for a moment.  It turns out that communist cabbies *don’t* say grace before meals, and he mentally told the Lord “Thanks, and sorry,”  before reaching for his spoon.

The soup was delicious.  Amazing. The last time he had enjoyed proper home-cooked pea soup was…

Hugh looked up to realize that Alice and the two cabbies were watching him with an expression usually reserved for zoo spectators while the lions are being fed.  

He must be blushing furiously.   _Stop looking at me!_

“Do I have something on my face?”  he demanded, reaching for the napkin.

Alice smile cautiously.  “Not at all, constable! It’s good to see someone enjoying my my cooking.  ...for once.” She elbowed Cec.

“I love your mum’s recipe,”  Cec answered, “but this is the third time this week.”

“The landlord is going to be by for the rent tomorrow, darling.  I didn’t feel like we could afford to be fancy until that’s paid.”  She looked down at her spoon.

“Alice, love,”  Cec patted her arm.  “You are absolutely right.  I don’t know how I managed without you.”

Bert appeared to be completely focused on spreading a very small piece of butter over a slice of bread.  Hugh wasn’t any more comfortable with the situation, but couldn’t think of how to interrupt a private discussion between a man and his wife.

“Apology accepted.”  Alice put her hand over her husband’s.  “The landlord will get his coin tomorrow, and I’ll make you a meal fit for a king on Saturday, after I get paid.”

Hugh took another slice of bread, and finished his soup quietly.   _How much does it cost to keep two people under a roof and fed?  How much was this tiny, upstairs flat?_

“And late Saturday night, Cec and I will take the cab and wait for toffs coming out of the Imperial club.”  Bert drank the last of his soup from the bowl.

“They tip well!” Cecil Yates grinned like a little boy.  The orange cat had somehow ended up on his lap, and was reaching a paw onto the table.

“It’s a bother to get the smell of perfume and champagne out of the upholstery, after.”  Bert snickered. “But the’ve got money, and we need to redistribute it!”

“Goodness knows we don’t get to keep any of it.”  Alice muttered, muffled by a slice of bread.

“We are managing,” Cec observed.  “Bert and I have a successful cab business, and you and I have everything we need.  We can’t eat paper, but we have soup, and bread. It’s enough.” He pushed the butter dish further away from the cat, and scratched the furry head behind the ears.

“It is, but it is hard to walk by all the stores full of ladies in silk frocks and fancy hats, when I’m planning how to mend my dress one more time.”  Alice's brown eyes were on her husband.

Cec leaned close and whispered in her ear.  

Hugh figured that Cec must have won the argument, because Alice giggled and blushed.  The cat took advantage of the distraction, and climbed onto the table to lick the butter dish.

There was no butter left now, but Hugh used one more piece of bread to get the last drops of soup out of the bowl.   _Is Dotty better off at Miss Fisher’s?  Will my salary pay for anything better than a tiny, run-down flat with no kitchen and the dunny in the back garden?_

“Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Yates.  The soup hit the spot.” Hugh stood up.  “Good luck with the toffs, gentlemen.”

Alice Yates was next to the door when he got there.  She handed him his helmet.

“Do you and Dot have a date set for the wedding?”  Her tone was causal.

“Not yet.  It was going to be a long engagement, so we are still talking about it.’  

“Don’t forget to save an invitation for us when the time comes!”  Alice’s dark eyes crinkled with her smile.

“I’ll remember.”  Hugh sighed. “It seems like the things I want for her are a long, long way off on a constable’s wages.”

“The two of you will have each other.”  

“Will that be enough?”  Hugh said, facing the door, with his hand on the knob.  The cabbies were arguing about how to divide up the driving on Saturday night.

“Does Dot think it will be enough?”  Alice snickered a little. “I wrote to that silly Artemis woman, and she told me not to marry Cec, but we have managed.  I’m ever so much happier.”

Hugh opened the door.  The sky was dark, now. So were the stairs down to the street.

“I’m glad for both of you.”  He turned back to glance at Alice, who was clearly happy being Mrs. Yates.  “Thank you again for a proper home-cooked meal. I really needed one.”

“Take care of yourself, Constable.”

“You aren’t going already?”  asked Cec. Chair legs scraped against the floor.  “Where *are* you staying?”

Collins closed the door, and faced the room.  “Excuse me?”

“This morning,” said Bert, “I asked after you at your mum’s.  After she finished using words not proper, she told me she’d thrown you out.”

_Well, I guess that secret is out._

“She’s upset about Dotty.  Miss Williams is the nicest girl I ever met, and mum can’t see past her being Catholic.”  Hugh sagged against the door frame.

“I recon God has room for everyone, myself.”  Cec muttered.

“Religion’s a bloody distraction, an opiate of the masses.  Don’t feed no one.” Bert stood up. “Your mum’s got no business throwing a boy out into the cold.”

“It’s her house,”  Hugh shrugged. “I’m grown up. It’s not like she threw out one of my little brothers.”

“Do you have a place to stay?” asked Alice.  “I’ll make up the couch for you.”

“It’s not bad.”  Cec laughed. “Alice hasn’t made me sleep there for a long time.”  His wife gently punched his arm.

“Why are you doing this?”  Hugh imagined the walk back to City south, and the not very nice cot, and the sound and smell of snoring alcoholics from the next cell.

“Can’t let a little bit of bourgeois superstition put a working man out of a place to sleep, even if he is a copper, besides, our Dotty would never stand for it if we did.” Bert clapped Hugh on the shoulder in a manner which was very nearly friendly.

“You didn’t tell Dot!”  he protested.

Bert looked a little embarrassed.  “No. I hadn’t mentioned it to her.  I guess it’s a thing for the two of you to talk about.”

“Mrs Yates, I accept.”  Hugh let himself feel just how tired he was.  “Thank you. The couch will be fine.”

“You are welcome, Constable.”  Alice smiled and began to collect the empty dishes, stacking them next to the hotplate and the soup pot.

Cec lifted the cat off the table, and deposited the animal out the door.  He returned with a bottle and a couple of shot glasses.

“Just one for you, Bert.”  He lined up the glasses on the tablecloth, and poured.  “You go back out with the cab.”

Hugh though the label looked familiar…”Flint’s rum?”

“It’s medicinal,”  Cec grinned and handed him a glass.  

“And a toast.”  Alice collected hers, and lifted it.  “Workers of the world.”

“Shoulder to shoulder.”  Bert grinned and winked at him. For the first time that evening it occurred to the constable that the man’s bluster had been laid on a bit thick.   _Has Johnson pulling my leg?_

"Shoulder to shoulder,"  agreed Hugh.  


End file.
